The group moved in silence, slipping through the ruins like ghosts. The sound had come from above-Luke was sure of it-but whatever was watching them had chosen not to attack. Yet.

The buildings loomed overhead, their skeletal remains casting long, broken shadows across the streets. The deeper they went, the more the city seemed to consume them. The wind whistled through shattered windows, rattling loose debris, whispering secrets of the dead.

Jake edged closer to Luke, his voice barely more than a breath.

"Did you hear that?"

Luke gave a single, sharp nod.

Jake clenched his jaw, scanning the rooftops, his muscles tensed like coiled steel. The others felt it too-an unseen presence moving above them, following their every step.

But there was no time to linger.

They needed to escape.

The further they traveled, the thicker the stench became-a putrid mix of decay, rot, and something else... something sickly sweet. The smell of fresh blood.

Luke saw them.

Bodies.

They lined the street ahead, some piled atop one another, others slumped against the crumbling walls. Their flesh had been torn apart, their bones cracked and gnawed clean. Entrails were smeared across the pavement, painting a grotesque mural of death.

Maria gagged, covering her mouth, eyes wide with horror. Anya turned away, shaking violently.

Luke exhaled through his nose, his expression unreadable. They had to keep moving.

The bodies were fresh.

And that meant whoever had done this was still nearby.

A sudden gust of wind carried a new sound toward them-low, guttural sniffing. The unmistakable sound of something hungry.

The group froze.

Up ahead, just beyond the pile of bodies, the first shape emerged.

Another monster.

Its flesh hung in tattered ribbons, its ribs exposed through torn skin. Its jaw hung unnaturally loose, stained red with fresh blood. Blackened veins pulsed beneath its rotting skin, its sunken eyes burning with a primal, unrelenting hunger.

It sniffed the air.

Then, another shadow shifted.

And another.

And another.

Luke's stomach twisted.

Q

There were more of them.

The creatures slithered from the darkness, their emaciated forms stalking forward on all fours, their long, clawed fingers scraping against the pavement. They hadn't seen the group yet, but the scent of human flesh was in the air, and they were searching.

Luke's blood turned to ice.

If even one of them looked this way—

They were dead.

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He turned to the others, his expression hard.

No words were needed.

They all understood.

Not. A. Sound.

One wrong step.

One wrong breath.

And they were done.

Slowly-painfully-they backed away.

Every movement was calculated, every step silent. Their muscles ached, their lungs burned, but they couldn't stop.

The ferals sniffed again, their heads tilting, their rotten faces twitching as they processed the air.

One of them snapped its head toward the group.

Luke's heart stopped.

For a single, agonizing second, the creature stared directly at them. Its lips peeled back, revealing jagged, yellowed fangs, strands of torn flesh caught between its teeth.

It inhaled deeply.

The group did not move.

The feral exhaled, its jaw unhinging in an eerie, bone-cracking stretch. It turned away.

The others followed, slinking back into the ruins, disappearing into the shadows once more.

Luke didn't breathe until they were completely out of sight.

His entire body was rigid, every nerve on fire.

They had barely made it.

One more second. One twitch. One sound.

And they would have been ripped apart.

Jake released a slow, shaky breath beside him. Maria had tears in her eyes. Anya was still trembling.

Luke steadied himself, forcing the panic down.

They had to move. Now.

Los Angeles wasn't just a graveyard.

It was a hunting ground.

And they were the prey.

The ruins stretched before them, broken towers silhouetted against the deep black sky. The group moved with cautious urgency, weaving through the skeletons of fallen buildings, their feet pressing against cracked pavement.

They were almost out.

Almost free of another prison.

For miles, Los Angeles had been nothing but a desolate maze of ruin and death-a city long since abandoned by the living. The ghosts of a world before the vampires lingered here, whispering through the shattered glass and rusted steel.

Luke exhaled slowly, his ribs still aching from the escape. His broken hand throbbed with each pulse of his heart, but the pain barely registered. They were close. So close he could taste it.

The open land beyond the city stretched into the unknown. Freedom.

A mistake.

One of the pets-Anya, maybe Maria-let out a small, breathless laugh.

Jake grinned, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten.

A whisper of excitement spread through the group.

They weren't thinking. They had survived.

They had made it.

And for the first time in days, hope blinded them.

A chunk of concrete slipped beneath Lukes boot. A metal canister rolled, clattering against the pavement.

The sound shattered the fragile silence.

Luke's stomach dropped.

Then, from the depths of the city, the howl came.

One of them had heard.

It started as a low, guttural cry-then grew, stretching into a bone-chilling wail that echoed off the ruins. The kind of sound that meant death.

The air shifted.

Something was coming.

Fast.

A blur of rotting flesh and clawed limbs streaked through the ruins, its body a twisted mass of muscle and decay.

It moved with impossible speed.

One second, it was miles away.

The next—

It was on them.

The group barely had time to react before it lunged, its blackened claws aimed for Luke's throat—

A shadow descended from above.

A figure dropped from the rooftops, crashing down like a fallen god.

A sword gleamed in the dim moonlight-long, blackened steel, wrapped in tendrils of seething darkness. The air itself seemed to shudder around it, a void of writhing, unnatural power.

The figure landed between them and the feral.

And then, in a single, effortless movement-

The feral's head left its shoulders. Its body crumpled, momentum carrying it forward before collapsing in a heap.

Blood-thick, dark, rotted-splattered across the pavement. The creature twitched, convulsing, its body refusing to accept death.

Then-stillness.

Silence.

The group stood frozen.

Luke's breath hitched. His body was rigid, every instinct screaming at him to run.

Not because of the feral.

Because of him.

The figure straightened, stepping away from the twitching corpse.

A man.

Tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in black, his coat frayed at the edges. His sword pulsed with something unnatural, the tendrils of shadow retracting back into the blade like they were alive.

Luke's blood ran cold.

At first, he thought it was one of the vampires. One of them.

Luke saw his eyes.

Not black. Not red.

Human.

A man. Flesh and blood.

Yet—he had power.

Power unlike anything Luke had ever seen.

The stranger tilted his head, looking over the ragged group, his expression unreadable.

Then, in a voice deep and edged with curiosity, he spoke.

"Where the hell did you lot come from?"